Many friends here will be experiencing the eclipse. We are in the TOTALITY area.

This warning came out: Do not drive while wearing eclipse glasses. (You mean the ones that block so much light you can look directly at the sun!?)

School was cancelled because it will happen at dismissal/bus time. (Couldn't do a half day?)

Hotels have been sold out from a year ago.

Expecting 500,000 tourists in the state.

Airstream RV rally took over the fairgrounds.

Business and school parking lots are roped off.

T shirts, donuts, soaps with eclipse themes.

County ordered $5000 of eclipse glasses to keep their workers safe.

Some say the world will end. I'll let you know if it does!

We have almost total mayhem here in the CLE with a home opener in the baseball stadium, they roof will be open in spite of the rain forecast, the eclipse must go on however, police are urging people to use the roads wisely - no driving, no pulling off to the side, no parking <-- all the precautions we are warned about if you must talk or text. The news stations have hired a flock of pre-puberty reporters claiming this is a -once in a lifetime- event - for those of you above driving age way back in prehistoric times of 2017 an eclipse occured beginning at the Pacific Ocean moving eastward to the Atlantic ocean, may have reached off shore to the east but I don't remember any mariner safety warnings at that time. Air-bnb rates are 6,000 for the week from Friday April 5th to the 12th. hope you filled an empty unit with furniture and tableware, this may not occur again for about 20 some years. My daughter has been hovering over her washing machine hourly this past month getting the dusty blankets from the farm sudsy, dry and folded up, we now have photo inventory of everything in each closet and kitchen cabinet - 12 place seasonal glassware divided between 2 places, autumn leaves, spring flowers, holly winter look and a few with sport fish for summer, but I really took most of those home.

It should be a great boost to the economy in those "totality" areas.

Another reason to party !

Some people finally choose to look up.

If ya miss it, fake noos will show pictures, later.

A lot of people will step in dog crap while looking up.

How many inmates will protest because they cant join in ?

Some r ed n ecks will use them later for welding glasses.

The way to test your eclipse glasses is to put them on. If you can see anything except for the sun, they're dangerous and shouldn't be used. There are a lot of counterfeit glasses that are unsafe for sun viewing.

Local sheriff will not be doing evictions today. I guess I get it. No reason to have deputies telling people to get out when we will most likely have a lot of people being really stupid and the deputies will have their hands full.

Schools had e-learning today. My son works for an online only school and they had half day.

I was supposed to take over an apartment but granted the tenant an extra couple days to get the place cleaned out. Not because of the eclipse but because I am not wanting to clean the crap up myself.

The spouse has glasses and a couple tee shirts. Not sure why with the shirts but she is all excited about it.

Brother-in-law was planning to be here from NV but work told him no.

Driving thru town I saw a lot of out of state plates and a couple people setting up telescopes with gadgets attached to them.

We were fortunate enough to be along the path of totality. It was raining in the morning but about an hour and half to spare, the clouds parted.

Some people said they felt earth bound. As for me being next to the largest man made lake located between Ohio and Pa, I felt humbled.

I was surprised how quickly it cooled down. I noticed the duck stop quacking as the sky grew darker. Other birds stopped flying around in the darkness.

The part that amazed me the most is the part that the family next us called the diamond. I am not sure what exactly happened but there was a flash on only one leading edge of the sun.

We were in 80% totality. I was attending the funeral ceremony of an Architect friend. He was a thinker. Three weeks ago when he knew time was getting close, he specifically told his family he hoped that his time worked out where the funeral could be during the eclipse. It didn't exactly work, they had the family grave-side service last week but in honor of his wishes they waited and had the community funeral today during the eclipse.

My B&B was in the 95% range ... peeps chasing the clear skies. Inn booked solid ... every cancellation rebooked in minutes. Crazy town!

Ray, I'd noticed the flashes as well.

It's because the moon's surface isn't smooth. It's made up of peaks and valleys. So as the moon goes into occultation (blocks the view of the sun), it doesn't do it smoothly-- it does it jaggedly. That allows some of the sunlight to peek through the valleys slightly longer when the rest of the sun is already blocked. The flash is that extra sunlight getting past. The same thing happens on the other end-- you get a flash. But because of the valleys, some of the sunlight gets past a moment or two earlier when the main part of the sun is still blocked. Then as the sun and moon continue to move, the full edge becomes visible.

I don't understand the mania,..I went to Wyoming in 2017 to see the total eclipse,...and meh,...I was not impressed yeah it got dark but I thought it would be more like midnight,.but at its peak but I think I still could have read a newspaper,

we had 93% here,..suprising how much sunlight gets to light up the earth with that 7%...it as alike a moderately cloudy day,..

The last time we had such a long totality was in 1806. The 1984 annular eclipse, for example, only lasted for 11 seconds. With this one, we got almost 4 minutes in a lot of places.

My town got 98.7% totality, but the difference in that last 1.3% makes a big difference. It was worth it to drive 2 hours and hang out with family and share the experience, but I know a lot of people who traveled wayyyyyy further.

I'm glad you got to see the 2017 one. :) We got to see the May 2012 annular eclipse right at sunset (which was really awesome), the August 2017 total eclipse at 70%, and the October 2023 annular eclipse at about 80%. I could have driven about 6 hours this past fall to see it at its best, but instead, I went to my kid's band competition. :) But I was happy I got to share this one with them.

Hollis: It isn't really about how dark it gets and whether or not you could still read a newspaper. It is about looking at the moon/sun during totality with your bare eyes. It looks amazing and is a great experience for most people. Not sure why it was nothing special to you if you had totality. Oh well.

We drove to Sandusky, Ohio to see it and it was fantastic! Skies cleared up and we had a great view. Some people went to a local "eclipse festival" where it was "standing room only", but we just found a church parking lot and had a huge area all to ourselves with some friends. Very much worth the 4+ hour drive each way.

In 2017 we flew to Missouri to try to see it, but had unfortunate weather with lots of clouds. It got dark, but that was it.

We were super glad to see it this time around. Hopefully we'll make it in 2044/2045. (I've checked all of the others before then and just don't see flying to any of those countries to see any of them. I don't need to go to Iran to see an eclipse... :) )

-John...

For those interested, here are some of my shots:

www.imgur.com/a/paz3YfW

Those are taken with my Nikon point-and-shoot. No SLR; no lenses; no filter. Straight from the super-zoom.

- John...

Excellent photos! :)

A friend of mine who just relocated from TX to Wales is going to Iceland for August 2026. (A 7-hr flight.) Meanwhile, my FB feed is full of advertisements convincing me to book passage on the Sky Princess for a Mediterranean Cruise + Eclipse Viewing Off the Coast of Spain for that same eclipse. :P Too bad the actual itinerary/booking opportunity won't be released for another month and a half... :)